Steam refunds to wallet instead of PayPal - Support tells me they can't do anything about it

[Sir Motte]

Hi everyone,

so I received a refund for two games amounting to 80€ total. The money was refunded to my Steam Wallet instead of the original payment method, which was PayPal.

The support tells me, that they can't do anything about it.
What can I do? They can't just keep my 80€.

Thanks!

[Ogami]

Did you pay directly with PayPal or did you charge your Steam Wallet with PayPal and then bought the games with the wallet money?
Also when you asked for the refunds it should have given you the option to select the refund target, the original outside payment method or the Steam Wallet.
Wallet is selected by default so maybe you overlooked that you had to manually set the refund target to PayPal?

Other then that Steam Support is correct, once the refund has been processed and been sent to your wallet there is no way to get the money back out of Steam, sorry.

[d3str0y3r]

You will receive the refund in Steam Wallet funds or through the same payment method you used to make the purchase. If, for any reason, Steam is unable to issue a refund via your initial payment method, your Steam Wallet will be credited the full amount. (Some payment methods available through Steam in your country may not support refunding a purchase back to the original payment method. Click here for a full list.)

https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds

[Sir Motte]

The refund wasn't initiated by me, but by the customer support of the developer, who intervened on my behalf. So no choice was given to me. The original Payment Method was a pure PayPal transaction.

I had recently been given a full payout for another refund as well, so this is definitely possible.

[Sir Motte]

d3str0y3r님이 먼저 게시:

You will receive the refund in Steam Wallet funds or through the same payment method you used to make the purchase. If, for any reason, Steam is unable to issue a refund via your initial payment method, your Steam Wallet will be credited the full amount. (Some payment methods available through Steam in your country may not support refunding a purchase back to the original payment method. Click here for a full list.)

https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds

Following your link, it clearly states, that refunds are made using the original payment method (comparing both texts, it seems there are differences depending on EU/non-EU countries. The steam wallet mention is missing completly (Germany)).

"Auswirkungen eines Rücktritts
Wenn Sie von Ihrem gesetzlichen Anspruch auf Rücktritt Gebrauch machen, erstatten wir Ihnen alle von Ihnen erhaltenen Zahlungen einschließlich der Versandkosten (mit Ausnahme etwaiger zusätzlicher Kosten für eine andere als die von uns angebotene günstigste Standardauslieferung), ohne unangemessene Verzögerung und in jedem Fall nicht später als 14 Tage ab dem Tag, an dem Ihre Entscheidung zum Widerruf des Vertrags bei uns eingeht. Die Rückerstattung erfolgt auf dem Zahlungsweg, den Sie für die ursprüngliche Transaktion verwendet haben, es sei denn, Sie haben ausdrücklich etwas anderes mit uns vereinbart; in jedem Fall entstehen Ihnen keine Gebühren infolge einer solchen Rückerstattung."

[Ogami]

Sir Motte님이 먼저 게시:

The refund wasn't initiated by me, but by the customer support of the developer, who intervened on my behalf. So no choice was given to me. The original Payment Method was a pure PayPal transaction.

I had recently been given a full payout for another refund as well, so this is definitely possible.

Ah yes, a special refund initiated by the game devs/publisher and not by the user goes always to wallet.
I seen that with "The Day Before" and the scam around that game. While refunds for everyone even outside the playtime limit was granted because of the circumstances those refunds were only granted as Steam Wallet credit.

You said "the developer intervended on your behalf", were you outside the 2 weks/2hours playtime refund window?

[Jamez Gamez]

I had $70 CAD in purchases from March 18, 2024 that I waited five days to get and response from support and the negligent agents incorrectly applied the credit to my steam account when I clearly said I wanted the money refunded to my original payment which was my Paypal. I have the support emails to prove this too.

I am contacting Paypal today and filing a complaint on steam I will be charging them back if they do not apply the credit to my original payment like they were supposed to. I never added funds to my account then made purchases; I made my purchases via Paypal and support did not apply my refund correctly. Steam is basically trying to force me to spend my money with them now.

[Ettanin]

Jamez Gamez님이 먼저 게시:

I had $70 CAD in purchases from March 18, 2024 that I waited five days to get and response from support and the negligent agents incorrectly applied the credit to my steam account when I clearly said I wanted the money refunded to my original payment which was my Paypal. I have the support emails to prove this too.

I am contacting Paypal today and filing a complaint on steam I will be charging them back if they do not apply the credit to my original payment like they were supposed to. I never added funds to my account then made purchases; I made my purchases via Paypal and support did not apply my refund correctly. Steam is basically trying to force me to spend my money with them now.

If you do a chargeback, your account will be restricted. You then have 4 weeks to undo the chargeback after which your payment method will be permanently banned on Steam.

[nullable]

Jamez Gamez님이 먼저 게시:

I had $70 CAD in purchases from March 18, 2024 that I waited five days to get and response from support and the negligent agents incorrectly applied the credit to my steam account when I clearly said I wanted the money refunded to my original payment which was my Paypal. I have the support emails to prove this too.

I am contacting Paypal today and filing a complaint on steam I will be charging them back if they do not apply the credit to my original payment like they were supposed to. I never added funds to my account then made purchases; I made my purchases via Paypal and support did not apply my refund correctly. Steam is basically trying to force me to spend my money with them now.

So did you try to address that "mistake" with support, or are you determined to throw the baby out with the bath water? Because as mentioned, chargebacks aren't necessarily an i-win button. If you can live with the consequences, so be it, but be aware there will be some.

[Jamez Gamez]

nullable님이 먼저 게시:

Jamez Gamez님이 먼저 게시:

I had $70 CAD in purchases from March 18, 2024 that I waited five days to get and response from support and the negligent agents incorrectly applied the credit to my steam account when I clearly said I wanted the money refunded to my original payment which was my Paypal. I have the support emails to prove this too.

I am contacting Paypal today and filing a complaint on steam I will be charging them back if they do not apply the credit to my original payment like they were supposed to. I never added funds to my account then made purchases; I made my purchases via Paypal and support did not apply my refund correctly. Steam is basically trying to force me to spend my money with them now.

So did you try to address that "mistake" with support, or are you determined to throw the baby out with the bath water? Because as mentioned, charge-backs aren't necessarily an i-win button. If you can live with the consequences, so be it, but be aware there will be some.

I'm trying to address it with support and waiting on their reply. My country does allow refunds to Paypal and my refunds in the past have always done that way unless otherwise stated. It's clear that Steam was very backlogged with support request as of March 15th, nearly 850K request submitted, with almost half of those request being refund cases.

In my opinion they just refunded my purchases to my Steam wallet instead of my Paypal as instructed to save time, This is not appropriate and I am reporting this to numerous organizations. I don't care what they do to my PayPal if they shouldn't have access to it anymore if they are going to act like this.

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/support/

[nullable]

Jamez Gamez님이 먼저 게시:

I'm trying to address it with support and waiting on their reply. My country does allow refunds to Paypal and my refunds in the past have always done that way unless otherwise stated. It's clear that Steam was very backlogged with support request as of March 15th, nearly 850K request submitted, with almost half of those request being refund cases.

I think you're confused about the difference of being allowed to do something and something being free from consequences. Chargebacks typically entail the payment processor recovering the money and charging significant fees to the vendor. The vendor is free to restrict the account and black list the payment method as a result. Ergo: consequences.

The law may allow you to initiate a charge-back regardless of it being reasonable or fraudulent. But it doesn't protect you from the retailers response in regards to your account. Retailers have rights too, fyi. And they may not be inclined to have customers engaging in friendly fraud and costing them money whenever the customer find it convenient or expedient.

Jamez Gamez님이 먼저 게시:

In my opinion they just refunded my purchases to my Steam wallet instead of my Paypal as instructed to save time, This is not appropriate and I am reporting this to numerous organizations. I don't care what they do to my PayPal if they shouldn't have access to it anymore if they are going to act like this.

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/support/

You're free to your assumptions, and if you make decisions based on those assumptions, you'll live with the consequences whether you like them or not. FYI, paypal doesn't reverse payment disputes from what I've heard so you may find that inconvenient.

I think you're confused about where the penalties will be applied, not your paypal account, your Steam account. Again if you don't care about it, good luck. If you do, then you might take a minute to get a handle on what the consequences of your payment dispute will be.

[Jamez Gamez]

nullable님이 먼저 게시:

Jamez Gamez님이 먼저 게시:

I'm trying to address it with support and waiting on their reply. My country does allow refunds to Paypal and my refunds in the past have always done that way unless otherwise stated. It's clear that Steam was very backlogged with support request as of March 15th, nearly 850K request submitted, with almost half of those request being refund cases.

I think you're confused about the difference of being allowed to do something and something being free from consequences. Chargebacks typically entail the payment processor recovering the money and charging significant fees to the vendor. The vendor is free to restrict the account and black list the payment method as a result. Ergo: consequences.

The law may allow you to initiate a charge-back regardless of it being reasonable or fraudulent. But it doesn't protect you from the retailers response in regards to your account. Retailers have rights too, fyi. And they may not be inclined to have customers engaging in friendly fraud and costing them money whenever the customer find it convenient or expedient.

Jamez Gamez님이 먼저 게시:

In my opinion they just refunded my purchases to my Steam wallet instead of my Paypal as instructed to save time, This is not appropriate and I am reporting this to numerous organizations. I don't care what they do to my PayPal if they shouldn't have access to it anymore if they are going to act like this.

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/support/

You're free to your assumptions, and if you make decisions based on those assumptions, you'll live with the consequences whether you like them or not. FYI, paypal doesn't reverse payment disputes from what I've heard so you may find that inconvenient.

I think you're confused about where the penalties will be applied, not your paypal account, your Steam account. Again if you don't care about it, good luck. If you do, then you might take a minute to get a handle on what the consequences of your payment dispute will be.

Actually I think you're the one that is confused @nullable and to clear things up for you here is what happened. After waiting five days to get my refunds on my purchases customer support yesterday finally refunded $60 CAD to my Steam wallet instead of to my PayPal as instructed

So I reached out to Steam support again today and told them I did not think that was fair and also advised them I was going to make a charge-back with PayPal and if they not reverse their action and refund me to my original method of payment.

Steam support responded within just a few hours today and reversed their action taking the $60 away from my Steam wallet that they added and now sent me my refund via PayPal like they should of. I'd be happy to show you a screen shot of our conversation too if you don't believe me.

Why should I be stuck with my hard earned money on Steam when I am entitled to a refund to my original method of payment? I'm a single full time Dad and my money to go to better things if I choose then just on this platform. Anyways for anyone out there that says Steam will not reverse their decision one they refund to the your wallet that is not true.